Now and Forever (51 page)

Karen recited a list of names, only a few of which were regulars in the society pages. "See what I mean?" the attorney said, leaning back in her chair. "The ones with money and empty houses can't be bothered."

"We'll see about that at the gala this weekend."

Karen grinned. "You're going to hit them hard?"

"Like a sledgehammer," Shannon said, grinning back. "A sophisticated, well-dressed sledgehammer."

"You realize you don't have to do any of this, don't you? That's what the foundation is for."

"It's easy to say no to a foundation," Shannon said. "It's a lot harder to say no to me."

"The question, of course, is
why
do you do it? I was thinking about this the other day and I realized how little I actually know about you."

"I do it because it needs to be done."

"But there's more to it, isn't there?" Karen persisted. "Something personal."

Shannon just smiled. "You've been reading too many mysteries, Karen. Some things are exactly as you think they are."

"Not you," said Karen. "There's a lot more to you than meets the eye."

Shannon grinned and stood up. "I'd better head home."

An odd expression flitted across Karen's face. "So how serious is it with you and Andrew McVie?"

"What makes you think there's anything between us, serious or otherwise?"

"He's living with you. That's a first to my knowledge."

"He needed a roof over his head."

"So now you're running a shelter for displaced Scotsmen?"

Shannon sighed. There was no avoiding this particular issue. "I know he has his problems, but Andrew is a decent man."

"I'm sure he is," Karen said, not sounding convinced.

"He just has a few things to learn about race relations."

"Don't we all?" Karen said in a dry tone of voice. "Every time I think we're making real progress, I run into someone like your friend and realize how far we still have to go."

Shannon gathered up her purse and portfolio. "I'll work on it."

Karen rose from her desk and showed Shannon to the door. "Take care of yourself," Karen said, giving her a warm hug. "You give me hope."

 
#

Andrew swung open the door to the white closet in the kitchen and stared at the array of foodstuff arranged within. Cold milk in a tall blue box, sticks of butter wrapped in shiny paper, chicken eggs nestled in a receptacle with depressions made to cup them like a nest. Two large beefsteaks rested on a glass shelf. Each was wrapped in pliable material that he could see right through. He bent down and pulled out a bin marked
vegetables
and saw an assortment that could have fed the Continental Army.

Shannon had told him to help himself to anything he desired but he found that with such bounty to choose from he was unable to choose anything at all. In truth he would gladly trade the contents of the white closet she called a refrigerator for a tankard of ale, a loaf of bread, and a leg of mutton.

Surely there must be some bread in the house. In his world even the poorest families had bread in the cupboard. In the back of the refrigerator, behind a large metal cylinder marked V-8, he found a package wrapped in the same see-through material as the beefsteaks, except for the fact that brightly colored circles dotted the surface

He opened it up and sniffed. Its aroma smelled only vaguely bread-like. He removed a slice. It had a strange spongy consistency that was not bread-like at all. Still, the word
Bread
was clearly written so it must be so.

It was mushy and sweet and not at all what he was accustomed to but it filled his stomach. He ate five of the slices and a few gulps of cold, thin milk and was about to return to his work outside when the telephone shrieked.

He tried to remember what it was Shannon had done to make it work but before he had a chance to do so, it stopped shrieking and the sound of Shannon's voice filled the room.

"Sorry I can't come to the phone right now," she said, "but if you leave your name and number at the tone, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks."

He started to say something when a peeping noise sounded, followed by a voice he didn't recognize. "This is Terri from the cottage. The kids went for a walk in the woods over an hour ago and th-they're not back yet. Do you think maybe you could drive over and help us? Sorry to bother you but we don't know what to do. Thanks a lot."

"I can find them," he said out loud to the empty room. He had walked those woods just the night before. It would not be a difficult task to find the children in the full light of day.

A few minutes later he crossed the yard behind the house, walked past the rectangular pond, then headed into the woods near the silver maple trees. He recalled a grove of pines a few hundred paces away, and a lightning-struck sassafras tree at a diagonal from the grove. The spot where the hot air balloon had landed was some distance from there but Andrew found it without any difficulty then stood perfectly still for a few moments, gaining his bearings.

He turned in the direction of the shelters, narrowed his eyes, and slowly scanned each inch of leaf-strewn ground for signs of the children. It didn't take long. The leaves were disturbed near the shelter-side of the woods and he found a thumb-sized piece of bright orange paper with the strange words
Peanut Butter Cups
printed across it. It smelled sweet, like a candy, and Andrew reasoned one of the children had discarded it along the way.

In truth it was a simple task to follow their path. It surprised him that the mothers were unable to do so. Footsteps in the dirt, crushed blades of grass, a copper coin glinting in the filtered sunlight.

Up ahead he heard the high-pitched sound of young voices and he picked up his pace. Moments later he stepped into a clearing and found the four children sitting on a log, morose expressions upon their faces.

"Crap," said one, looking up at him with disgust. "They sent the guy who talks funny."

"'Twould seem to me you would welcome my arrival," Andrew said, maintaining his temper in the face of such disrespect.

"Are you a cop?" the only girl in the group asked.

"I am a lawyer," Andrew said.

The children looked at each other and burst into merry laughter. Andrew did not much care for the sound of that laughter for it seemed to hold an unpleasant edge within it.

The oldest boy met his eyes. "So what do you call a lawyer at the bottom of the ocean?"

"A good start!" the Negro boy next to him called out as the two slapped hands together.

"You find the death of a lawyer a source of amusement?" Andrew asked, wondering about the nature of children.

"Lighten up," said the girl. "It's only a joke."

"I thought humor was the object of joke-telling."

The Negro boy frowned. "You didn't think that was funny?"

"No," said Andrew, "'twas nothing funny about it." He could feel his spine growing rigid in true Boston fashion.

"But I got it from a book," said the first joke-teller. "They got about a hundred lawyer jokes."

Andrew's brows knit together in a scowl. "What is it about lawyers that causes such mirth?"

The children looked at each other, then at Andrew.

"Lawyers are greedy," said the girl.

"They're bad people," one of the boys said.

"My uncle is a lawyer," said the oldest boy who was then treated to a series of rude noises and much laughter from the others.

Andrew crouched down near where they sat on a fallen log. "The function of a good lawyer is to maintain order in a civilized world."

"Tom Cruise was a lawyer in
The Firm
," said the girl.

"Tom Cruise is a weenie," said the Negro boy to cheers from the other boys.

"He is not," said the girl.

"Is so."

"Is not.

"Is so."

Andrew, thoroughly confused by this turn of events, rose to his feet. "Your mothers are worried. 'Tis time you returned and put their minds at ease."

"It's boring back there," said the oldest boy. "There's only one TV."

"They don't even have Nintendo," said the Negro boy.

"I wanted to bring my Barbies," said the girl they called Angela, "but my mom was in too big a hurry to let me pack them."

They started walking back toward the shelters with Andrew in the lead. He did not know the nature of Barbie or Nintendo but he did know bone deep fear when he saw it. The children hid that fear behind a cloak of rudeness and hilarity but it was still visible for those who looked beneath the surface.

He thought of his own David and wondered how the boy would have felt if violence between his parents had been part of his daily life. His imagination could not conceive of such a burden on so frail a pair of shoulders.

"How did you find us?" Angela asked, hurrying to keep up with him. "Derek and Charlie got us lost in the woods so deep we didn't think we'd ever get out."

"'Tis no great feat," Andrew said. "You need only to know how and where to look."

Derek, the Negro boy, fell into step. "Everything looks the same in here. It's just a bunch of trees."

Andrew chuckled. "Pine, fir, sassafras, silver maple, holly--"

"I see the Christmas trees," Derek said, "but the others still look the same."

Christmas trees? Andrew wondered what a tree and Christ's birthday could have in common.

Charlie, the oldest of the four, lagged behind with Scott, the youngest. "Who cares about this anyway?" he asked in a belligerent tone of voice. "Only Boy Scouts know that stuff."

Andrew looked back at him. "You would not have been fearful had you known your way about."

"I wasn't scared."

"You were," said Andrew in an easy tone of voice.

"They're babies," Charlie said. "They were scared but I wasn't."

"You were too," said Scott.

"Yeah," said Angela. "You wanted your mommy."

"'Tis normal to feel afraid in a strange place," Andrew said, "but the more you understand about the things around you, the less afraid you will be."

Angela looked up at him and smiled. "I'm afraid of the dark," she confided. "Daddy took out the belt last night 'cause he caught me sleeping with the light on."

 
Andrew caught sight of a deep purple bruise peering out from beneath the half-sleeve of her bodice. In his mind's eye he saw the little girl, crouched in fear, as her father made to hit her. What kind of world was this that a child should bear the marks of violence upon her person. He could not help but wonder if the seeds for this violence had been sowed in his own time.

The little girl looked up at him, considering, then took his hand. They didn't speak, which was just as well, because the lump in Andrew's throat made words impossible.

Chapter Fourteen

Shannon arrived home from Karen's office feeling tired and vaguely depressed. Not that she regretted signing the papers that secured the future for the shelters. Knowing that her fortune would be put to good use was a deep and abiding source of happiness.

But it was something else, something more elemental, that had triggered the sense of time passing quickly...too quickly for her taste. She felt as if she'd lived a lifetime in the past forty-eight hours, as if everything she said and did and felt had more meaning now than at any other time in her life.

From the start she'd felt connected to Andrew in a way that defied logic, almost as if their souls were linked together in some strange form of communication. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, she'd stopped hearing his voice within her heart. Was this how it would be then, she wondered, a gradual pulling away until he left her behind to start a new life on his own?

Sighing, she walked up the driveway and around the corner of the house toward the French doors in the back. She had her hand on the doorknob, about to go inside, when something caught her eye and she turned. Andrew was hard at work at the far corner of the yard beyond the pool and, at a distance behind him, sat four of the kids from the shelter. Not that she saw the children. All she saw was Andrew.